When amputee Barbara Jackson lost half of her right leg, there was one thing she looked forward to most of all — going for a walk.
Ironically, that became easier once the 52-year-old from Adelaide opted for a leg amputation.
She had put up with months of gout in her right leg, which was already blighted by a persistent infection.
"I haven't been able to walk for years for any distance and I really just want to go for a walk," she said.
"It wasn't a drama, it was something I prepared myself for, for quite a long time."
It was an intrusive complication after a failed kidney transplant which she was treating at home with peritoneal dialysis.
She said the hardest part was convincing doctors she had made up her mind.
"I had doctors who just wanted to keep pushing the antibiotics, even though the infection was getting worse," she said.
Her treatment involved a tube inserted under her skin and connected to a vacuum pump.
Less than 24 hours after the amputation, Ms Jackson was upright in her hospital bed, using her mobile phone and watching television.
"I'm very happy with it," she said.
"I'm super happy now that this has happened because I feel for a long long time my life was just one day after the other dragging on ... but now I'm happy, I'm actually happy."
So happy, that she and her friends dubbed her right leg "Stumpette McStumpface".
My legs won't grow back
Unlike Barbara, M.A.D. for Peace founder Gill Hicks, who was originally from South Australia, had a different experience and no input into losing her lower legs in the 2005 London bombings.
She remembers regaining consciousness to be told by a doctor he had "good news".
"The surgeon at St Thomas' Hospital [in] London did in fact tell me with great delight once I was conscious in hospital that he had managed to save my knees," Ms Hicks said.
"This had a significant impact on the type of prosthesis that I can wear — equally I can crawl on my knees, making mobility slightly easier when I don't have my prosthetic legs on."
Yet the physical loss remained a constant source of reflection.
"It is a journey," she said.
"I have stopped using the word 'recovery' because I won't recover, my legs will never grow back.
"So it is, for me, a continuous journey of 10 steps forward and five steps back — continuous changes in my residual limbs, including excruciating nerve pain which is completely debilitating."
She said the loss was a reminder of her limitations but steeled her resolve to embrace life after being close to death.
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